Family of Corner Brook man shot by police say they have not been told a thing by the authorities

The entrance to the apartment at the rear of the home on Carriage Lane in Corner Brook where Jorden McKay was fatally shot by police Tuesday night. In the background is the Sunnyslope suburban neighbourhood of Corner Brook. - Gary Kean

By the time she got there, an ambulance was outside her brother’s home and Lisa Greening was told by police to leave.

She went further down the road to wait. Before long, she saw the ambulance leaving with its emergency lights flashing.

The family of Jorden McKay wants to know what happened to him.

Greening is the sister of the 27-year-old man who was fatally shot by a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officer at his apartment on Carriage Lane in Corner Brook late Tuesday night.

She says she called him Tuesday night to let him know the police were looking for him.

Jorden McKay

On Monday, the RNC filed new charges against McKay, who has a lengthy criminal record. Those charges included allegations of contacting and assaulting a woman McKay was bound by court order not to communicate with.

He was set to go to trial in January for allegedly assaulting the same woman last April, charges to which he entered not guilty pleas in June.

Greening had agreed to act as his surety, an agreement to be responsible for an accused person adhering to orders of the court.

She said her phone indicated she was speaking with McKay, who had told her he was home, at 11:32 p.m. Tuesday night. That’s about the same time the RNC says it responded to a criminal complaint that led to the shooting.

Greening said she was talking on the phone to him while police were at McKay’s home to arrest her brother.

Greening described her brother as being relatively calm as he questioned the police about the latest allegations against him before her conversation with him ended. She recalled him asking the police if he could eat the food he was preparing before they took him away.

She said she heard him asking the police why they were handcuffing him.

Greening immediately left her home on the city’s east side to go to her brother’s to make sure his place was secured after he had left with the police.

That’s when she encountered the scene involving an ambulance.

She and other family members went to Western Memorial Regional Hospital to see what they could find out about Mckay. After waiting for some time, they were taken to a private room by two officers and medical staff and informed he had died at 12:35 a.m.

“We asked them how he died, but they wouldn’t tell us and told us there would be an investigation,” said Greening.

She said the family was floored to learn from local news outlets a few hours later that a man had been fatally shot on Carriage Lane.

The RNC’s news release was issued at 6:47 a.m., a little more than three hours after Greening said she and her family members left the hospital in a state of shock.

Greening, in an interview with The Western Star at around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, said the police had still not told them McKay had been shot, let alone why.

“We just want answers,” she said. “We still don’t know anything.”

Greening said her brother may have had his problems, but he was a good person.

“He really wanted to change things in his life,” she said. “He would often thank me for helping him get a second chance (by acting as his surety).”

Jorden McKay was the father of two children, a boy and a girl. Greening said he had just applied to a program to earn his high school diploma.